April 2006

One of the most interesting aspects of my work is that I constantly see people responding to hurt. It is interesting to me that the majority of people always assign maliciousness to an action by someone else. On the other hand, people usually readily see the self-protective nature of their own actions. Social psychologists call this the “attribution error.” We see the other’s action as character flaw, and our actions as mistakes.

I find it important that individuals work to see that there are very few people who are actually malicious. The chances of being married to one are fairly low. But the chances are good that seemingly malicious actions are really rooted in self-protection. When we are hurt, we lash out. The lashing out may feel malicious to the other, much like what we were lashing out against: seemingly malicious actions.

This truth applies to parenting, also. When we are able to view our child’s actions as response to hurt, this requires a different response than when we assume it is from maliciousness. A two year-old is pitching a fit because he or she wants something or is threatened by something, not because he or she is mean.

A teenager may say attacking words, but they are often retaliatory in nature. They may be trying to establish a “self-hood” that they think is being threatened (curfews, groundings, and anything else that reigns in freedom), or may feel slighted. The words coming out may be malicious, but that does not mean the person is malicious.

My daughter loves the bumper sticker that quotes Ghandi: “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. . . leaves the world blind and toothless.” What would happen in relationships if we worked from an assumption that the attack from another comes from hurt and pain, not mean-ness? What would happen if we worked from a point of forgiveness? After all, if the person is seen as hurt and in pain, it is much easier to offer forgiveness and understanding.

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My daughter was recently in her school’s performance of Fiddler On The Roof. She was one of the daughters. If you don’t know the story, it focuses on the changing culture of marriage, from one where the marriage is arrainged by family and community to one based on mutual attraction.

In one of the songs, the main character asks his wife if she loves him. She replies that for 25 years, she has shared his bed, made his meals, tended his house, raised his children — so what kind of question is that? The point is, love wasn’t even a question or consideration. But after some back-and-forth, they decide that, indeed, they love each other.

This led me to think about what I know about marriage. And here is what I think about the question of love: we fall in love to get together, then spend the rest of our lives learning to love the other.

You see, the initial attraction is really about “I.” I feel a certain way, so I know I am “in love.” But it is driven by my need to feel that way, my need to be with the other person, my need to have my needs met.

But love is a verb, something I do for the other. So, it takes the rest of my life to learn how to attend to my spouse’s needs. From my desire to be with my spouse comes my desire to meet my spouse’s love needs.

We are “fooled” into commitment by the overwhelming feeling of attraction, then we have to put forth effort to create a sustained relationship. I say “fooled” because our culture has us believeing that this love is the foundation of a relationship. It is not. It is merely a temporary starting point.

My feelings will calm over time. The overwhelming need to be with someone that marks the infatuation portion of a relationship is not sustainable on its own. It’s like placing a flame in a bottle. Eventually, the flame will burn all the oxygen in the bottle and be extinguished.

So, there has to be some “fueling of the fire.” This is “love,” the verb. When I act in loving ways, I fuel the fire, keep it burning. If I stop tending to the other’s needs because I don’t feel that infatuation, the relationship will slowly (or not so slowly) die away.

When we keep believing that “love” (infatuation) is the heart of a relationship, when that feeling is gone, we believe we are no longer in love. That is not the case; we have just failed to fuel the fire.

Reality TV has proven that any two people, given the right circumstances and settings, can fall into love (chemistry of infatuation). But story after story shows that it is harder to make the switch to “true love” that comes from action. Choose action, and don’t be fooled by chemistry.